Thoughts on Otakon 2008 Day 2 Part 2: Games! Panels! Karaoke! EPIC!

When I stopped last time, I had just gotten some keychains from the Kadokawa panel, which wasn’t too bad time spent. And my day goes on…

3:00: Spent some time with Nomad in the dealer’s room, which almost sucked out my soul. I only had about $250 on hand, and $100 extra from a good friend, and I worried I was going to spend it all in one day. Not on figures, but on books, DVDs and shaz. I did pick up the rest of the Haruhi DVDs (bought LE vol 1, then figured that the broadcast order DVDs weren’t that exciting, so I just bought the single issues), a Niea_7 scrapbook (ABe = <3), and an artbook from Kuroboshi Kouhaku, aka the Kino and Allison & Lillia artist, which was also awesome. Escaped with my life, I did.

4:00: Helped run the Game Show Quiz. Couldn’t actually take it though I wanted because I’m associated with the group running it, and I also unintentionally helped out with the setup, so conflict of interest abounded. It was funny but a little sad to see otaku dreams crushed there. I also noted that though I would’ve sucked at the quiz, I probably would have done enough to be one of the four finalists there. Which sucks. ;_;. Did talk with two people who were veterans of the game show before, and it was interesting to see how they took it as serious business.

5:00ish: Lined up next to (Py)Tom of Ren’Py fame waiting for the Fansubber and Industry panel. Long line was pretty long, as it seemed that people really apparently wanted to see blood shed. Waved omo down and we went and watched the panel.

5:30: Panel begins. Omo and Maipeisu basically give the rundown, so I won’t. But thoughts: Do X-Box Live fans really seem to like Suzuka more than DVD buyers? Blu-ray = yay all around. Lol at everyone piling on Heiskill from FUNimation (he does seem to be the most “nerdish” of everyone there, but then again, aren’t we all?). A big AMEN on karaoke effects on fansubs with omo and a lot of the crowd. It’s sooo damn unnecessary. Another AMEN on unnecessary changes to the final product on the industry’s end, but obviously it’s not quite as big of a probhlem to me.

To copy what I said on omo’s post: It was great to see that there was no bloodshed, as well as how it seems that both sides do seem to realize that it’s not an us vs. them mentality. What I’m wondering is if the fans are able to realize this as well. Which is why I get annoyed when some people become pundits about the entire thing. Maybe more of that occurs in the future. It was a little productive. Nothing too ground-breaking (save for maybe BLU-RAY), but the sides got to understand each other a little bit more.

And that warms my heart a little. :3

7:20: Spotted two well done Vocaloids 1 and 2 outside the window to the Otacafe. Wish I had a camera again.

7:30: Waited for karaoke with omo, but long wait was long. While waiting, met up again with Baka-Raptor, os, Link, wah, and beefy in terms of MTF animebloggers, but also met moy (who’s spam catcher apparently hates me), lolikitsune and super rats for the first time. Moy was like Baka-Raptor, although in his case, I though that he was holding in his enthusiasm more than trying to detach himself from everyone else, so obviously he should let it out more. 😛 Lk was a pretty cool customer, and I noticed that he had the first volume of the ARIA manga and tow. Given that he’s in Mizunashi-mode right now, I thought that was pretty cool. God, I keep thinking that I’m forgetting another anime blogger, so let me know with the punch to the comment box if I forget you. Given that there nothing better to do while waiting for karaoke that would probably only come up at 9:00PM, we all went up to check out the Bandai Surprise.

9:00: Surprise, surprise, long line is long again. Again, WHY BANDAI?!? WHYYYYYYY?!?!?!??!. And the thing was, while we were all waiting, lk suggested the idea of us doing our own impromptu anime blogger panel right there. Now that I think about it, we should have grabbed a table and just done it, even though it would probably be just a bunch of people goofing around. But seeing all the bloggers right there, it makes me annoyed that omo’s idea for an anime blogger panel sadly didn’t work out. Maybe next year. ;_;

9:50: So we go back to the Otacafe, and EPIC KARAOKE ensues. If you’ve checked out other blog posts, you notice that I sang SKILL with omo and Link. Having them there really helped, as I easily get stage fright even though I know I shouldn’t. It was fun times, and I personally thought that I was the best of the three (no disrespect), and it helps that others apparently thought so as well. Everyone had fun with it, which was the good thing, and how could singing JAM Project ever steer anyone else wrong?

10:00PM: Went to game show with Baka-Raptor and helped administer it with Nomad and other current and former members of my college anime club, so I worried if Baka-Raptor would enjoy it (turns out I didn’t have to). Everyone seemed to love it and some of the questions where pretty great. I felt a little miffed because I know that if I was up on the panel, I probably would have given the eventual winner a run for the money, especially in cleaning his clock at “Name That Tune”. .\/. But I got to throw candy (I accidentally hit someone in the head/face a couple of times, so sorry to that person. I’m not sure that this being my first Otakon helped matters with that. :/), and was pleasantly surprised that “Yuri Matsuri” was brought up there. I had randomly suggested it when people were trying to find something as the Yuri counterpart to “Yaoi Kazowie”, and it didn’t seem to register well, but I’m glad that I actually contributed somewhat to Otakon as psuedostaff.

12:00AM: Helped clean up the show, talked with other members of the staff, and turned it in at the hotel. A floor had never been quite as comfortable as it was that day.

EDIT: Or so it would seem… if there wasn’t MORE KARAOKE! Here, wildarmsheero took it upon himself to sing “Catch You, Catch Me” while declaring his eternal love for Sakura-“tan” as myself, omo, Link and beefy watched and cheered him on. It was epically disturbingly hilarious. You heard that right.

That should be one of the lasting memories of wah from this trip. That, and the fact that I saw him reading some hentai doujin while bored at the JAM Project Q&A. That one didn’t really compute too much. 😛

LOL sorry about my spam catcher. It apparently hates a few of my regular commenters as well, so don’t feel bad.

And yea, I would have hung with ‘ya all longer but midnight is the limit for this old body of mine (even though I ended up staying up to 2AM blogging and/or catching up on blogs). I’m still slightly pissed I missed everyone else karaoke-ing that night and the following day (esp wildarms’ “Catch You, Catch Me” that I keep hearing is epic in its own right).

I tried playing along with the text message system but got an error on the first question, so I quit. Also, the yuri matsuri question was too hard. Otherwise the game show was awesome. Lots of creative questions.

lk: It would have been fun to do it right then and there, but I’d want more people than just those stuck in the Bandai surprise line to find out more about what awesome people we are. 😛

And my fault on getting the volume wrong. It’s still wonderful. :3

moyism: Sure you can’t be that broken down by the world. But given how tired I was after just two days of this, I understand well.

Baka-Raptor: I think if you had tried after the first question, things would have worked out. And here’s a little secret: Nomad wrote a lot of the questions that you saw in this game show. A lot of awesome contained in this blog, there is. 😀